Vivo Y95 Review: Good Midrange Contender

Phones pushing 13 ro 15k mark is becoming very attractive for smartphone because of the decent specs and features these phone offer. Brands like Cherry Mobile, OPPO, Huawei and Nokia offer phones at this price range. This time, Vivo is also offering a smartphone too called the Vivo Y95. Is it worth the look? Let’s find out at this review.

Vivo has borrowed some its design cues to its more expensive sibling, the Vivo V11. This two-tone back color, the waterdrop notch and the placement of the rear camera is all but familiar. We are not actually bothered with the plastic build as it is more durable compared to glass and metal phones. Its irritating to see smudges on your phone because of the shiny back. Good Vivo included a free case you can use.

DISPLAY

We have a 6.22-inch display on the Vivo Y95 with a resolution of 720 x 1520 pixels. That’s pretty low especially if you are used to 1080p screens. We noticed the display is a bit washed out and sunlight legibility is a bit underwhelming. Better use this phone indoors.

SOFTWARE AND PERFORMANCE

On top of Android 8.1 Oreo is Vivo’s own Funtouch OS. The user interface takes getting used to if you have not used a Vivo phone before. We admit that Funtouch OS is not our favorite UI and we do prefer a more stock Android look and feel. But Vivo has included some useful features like a Motorbike mode. It allows you to handle incoming calls while driving a motorbike. Features such as auto reject calls or auto respond via SMS are also included.

Antutu Benchmark

Geekbench 4

On the performance side, it is our first time to review a phone powered by Qialcomm’s new Snapdragon 439 processor. It is paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It is surprisingly decent and much better than phones running the older Snapdragon 430. Games run smoothly though graphic intense games such as PUBG mobile won’t run smoothly here. Better adjust the graphic settings.

CAMERA

There is a dual camera set up at the rear – a 13 megapixel main camera and a 2 megaoixel depth sensor for bokeh photos. Photos are surprisingly good especially those taken with good lighting. Its weakness shows in low light, Having an aperture of f/2.2 has its disadvantages. Low light photos are bit noisy.

Here take a look at the photos:

Selfies (with and without bokeh)

Indoor (low light)

Outdoor (daylight and night shot)

CONNECTIVITY

If the Vivo V11 has an under screen fingerprint scanner, the Vivo Y95 has the normal fingerprint scanner at the rear. 4G/LTE was pretty stable with Smart’s network and we never encountered any signal inconsistencies. Calls are good as well.

BATTERY

The best feature of the Vivo Y95 is the battery – 4,030 mAh. That’s more than enough for your daily juice need and maybe 30 more the following day if you are a moderate to heavy user. We managed to get more than 6 hours of screen on time. Nice!

VERDICT

The 13 to 15k mark is flooded with so many phones to choose from. We think the Vivo Y95 is worth the look. For P13,999 we think its a bit high especially for a phone with 720p display. We could only wish Vivo could bump it up to full HD. The camera could be better too in low light. Other than that, we think it is a good phone to consider – smooth performance, great battery life, solid build quality, nice daylight photos.